Waiting to Get There. Usually on the A/C/E in Chelsea, New York City.

Photo credit: History.com Everything is better when overpowered by wafts of voluptuous Thanksgiving turkey roasting nearby. Especially my new pants. I purchased these pants at REI on Wednesday, full price. Although no one would admit it, we all piled in the minivan and hustled off to REI because we knew if we continued to lush about the house, Grandma would connive us into raking the yard and digging up Azalea bushes. She’s a 99-year-old Type A gardening machine. My new pants came with a small instruction booklet because they have so many features. For example, a pulley system stowed in the cargo pockets runs down each pant leg so I can hike them up while fording streams or showing off a really bold sock. It was all good until Samantha caught me rolling up my pant legs old school and I had to admit that operating pulley system exceeds my capacity for mechanical engineering and/or fashion. Plus I’d already chucked the instruction booklet in the same garbage can as all the t...

J ust because you can find the best buffet line doesn't mean you can operate it. I learned this at the Health Information Technology conference last week. I was inordinately pleased with myself for spying a little annex buffet nestled behind the interoperability booth. No one was over there. Meanwhile, the main buffet suffered a line out the door.  I took a plate and attacked the olives. Slippery little suckers. It was hard to hold a plate, a napkin and brandish a tiny fork like a spear. I became deeply involved in the attempt to capture a medley of olives. A time check boomed over the PA system and everyone started to filter back into the session room for the next speaker. Obviously I couldn't be bothered. I would not let the olives win.  Finally. I pinioned 4-6 olives and grinned like I'd caught lightning in a bottle. I tossed a couple of pita chips next to the olives and grabbed an attractive blue bottle of fizzy water on my way into the session which had alread...